


the things I do for love

by froginatinyhat



Category: The Aurora Cycle - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Genre: Absolute bastard Archon Caersan, Aurora Cycle, Aurora burning, F/M, Gen, I love writing about psychopaths, SPOILERS!!!, The Echo, Violence, We stan terrible parenting, aurora rising, it builds character, this is explicit and im not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25749409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froginatinyhat/pseuds/froginatinyhat
Summary: !!!HUGE SPOILERS FOR AURORA BURNING!!!“I am ready.”It is not a question, not a statement, it is an order.The Eshvaren is a creature of myth, and yet it acts like every other creature I have met. When I order for something to be done, it is done.The Eshvaren looks me in the eyes, the mismatch matching my own. Its answer is simple.“Yes.”(In other words, what Archon Caersan experienced in The Echo.)
Relationships: Archon Caersan/Laeleth Gilwraeth, Kaliis Gilwraeth & Saedii
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	the things I do for love

**Author's Note:**

> I want to make clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Starslayer is an abusive bastard we should all hate. There is no excuse for abusing your family, and this fic is in no way meant to make him likeable. I’m writing this because abusers are monsters that are also people, with complex stories and reasons- often twisted and cruel. Abusers like Archon Caersan can go undetected and often unpunished because they look like people- often charming and misleading, powerful and hard to identify.  
> I’m not writing this story for any other reason other than the character seems interesting (still unlikable) and has the potential to make this an interesting read because he has such a twisted mindset. How he perceives the world and the people in his life is probably vastly different from what people in any sort of right mind see it.  
> I also take inspiration from the works you can find about another villain: Marisa Coulter. Horrible human being, but the horuspices sing on by Rupzydaisy is honestly one of the best collections of fan fiction I’ve ever read. Read it if you like His Dark Materials.

The first time the Eshvaren takes me to the edge of the world to finally confront what holds me back, I face my father.

I learned much from him.

How to tie your braids in a way so that they never fall forward, the right technique to preparing teas so you don’t have the minuscule, gritty pieces of leaf stick to your tongue, what a man with nothing to lose looks like.

How to break bones in a way that they will never mend properly, the right technique to make someone think you care for what they want so you don’t have to bribe, steal or cheat your way into taking what you want from them, what a man with everything to gain looks like.

How to play the grieving son when your father throws himself off the roof out of the blue.

My father was such a good actor, just so good at carrying on in spite of all he lost. He made it through with a stiff upper lip when his Be’shmai lost her life during childbirth, cared for the baby when it screamed all night. Raised them into a man.

One drunken night, when I was barely out of being a teenager, he told me something about myself that should have surprised me. Make me consider myself in a different light. It did not.

“ _You murdered your own mother, you know? How I knew you were indeed my son. Tore right through her, so suddenly that we couldn’t get her to the Temple or hospital fast enough. She screamed at first. And then she barely made a noise when you began too. She bled out, so much. You were covered in it, so purple I thought you had drowned when I first pulled you out. But you didn’t. You were very, very alive. Like you’d leached the life entirely out of my Reriesa.”_ He had punctuated the next statement with his own sardonic smile, raising the glass of alcohol in a toast to me. _“My precious little parasite.”_

Father never quite understood that to be a child was to be a blood sucking creature that drained the life out of you, that to become a parent was to become a host.

And that most parasites will eventually get around to killing their hosts.

I am a child once more in this memory, training under my father. My little body is doing all it can just to stay alive, ducking away and hitting back just as viciously. How it has been my entire life.

I could never win as a boy, and I do not win now. I fall back to the ground from a particularly strong blow, my head a burst of agony when it hits the ground.

“Up, Caersan.”

I get up. And as I do, my body grows up as well. With the sheer force of my will, I become the age I am now- a young man in my prime. And I face him honestly this time, man to man. I fight him in the way I was taught to, with my fists and knives. No drugged drinks or balcony ledges this time.

And I win.

The Eshvaren looks on with eyes that hold nothing as I take my knives to my fathers throat, saying nothing as I watch the light leave his eyes. The darkest purple blood flows in spurts over my hands as he chokes. I could stop. Yet the Eshvaren does nothing to stop me, so I rip my dear fathers head off. Tearing through brittle bones and leathery skin, his braids are soaked almost black with the blood that runs in my veins as I take his head.

 _‘I finally won,’_ is the only thought that plays in my mind as I throw the decapitated head off the cliff into the Lias trees below.

_‘I finally won.’_

* * *

When the Eshvaren make me confront my demons again, they take the form of my own “ _precious little parasites_.”

They are not the adults I expect them to be. A little disappointed by the familiar houses and trees of where I lived with my family on Syldra, I think on how I would have liked to see my son as a man. The last time I looked at him in the flesh, he was still a boy with disproportionate limbs, large hands, and skinny shoulders.

I wonder how he would look at me, at the world. Does he still approach it with the same sense of wonder and appreciation his mother taught him? Or does he finally see it as his to conquer, like his sister does now? Does he have a drifting resignation, lost instead of exploring? I suppose I will never know Kaliis as an adult as I know Saedii. Only as the little boy who played messy tunes with his mother on a worn siif. He also collected flowers from the streets.

He is doing so now, trailing slightly behind me as I walk my children home from their school. Gathering the white petalled flowers that grow like weeds beside the pavement, he makes what looks to be a bouquet. No doubt for his mother.

He saw me dispose of the bunch he picked for me before, making no sign of his indignation other than the pout of his lip and little stomping steps as he made his way back to the living room. Laeleth always put the flowers he picked for her on her bedside table. I used to watch her delicate, soft fingertips trace the petals before she turned out the light for sleep, even as they began to droop. I would be the one to throw them away when they began to rot, to change out the browning water.

Saedii walks towards the house, trying to ignore her surroundings. I still see the way her huge indigo eyes look toward the playground. It is full of other children, empty of the teenagers that like to gather there at night. They like to swing idly, balance on the beams when they believe no one is watching them in the way the toddlers are supervised now. Kaliis notices too, bumbling up to my leg.

“Can we go play,” Kaliis asks, shyly looking up at me. “Please?”

When this truly happened, my answer was a strict _No_.

When Kaliis's face had crumbled, I gripped his braids before he could make a scene. _If you make a fuss, I will make sure you pay for it._

He had begun to cry nonetheless. He did not wail, flail his fists and make insipid little excuses for doing so in the way I have seen so many young children do. They were silent, tears making his purple eyes seem even bigger than usual. I slapped him firmly across the face anyway. _Tears mean a fuss, Kaliis._

I paid no mind to the judgmental, sanctimonius gazes from other parents. One woman even stroked her child’s hair, seeming to think that she could never do such a thing to the bratty toddler sucking on his thumb. Nor did I care for the curious stares from the other children, wondering what Kaliis did to deserve a public slap.

Stumbling forward, he reached for Saediis hand. I didn’t stop her from scooping him up, though I did tell her _Do not reward him, he needs no comfort._

Kaliis had glared at me across her shoulder, even as his sister ran her hand over his back. Her voice had been soft, though her words were relatively harsh. _Stupid baby, I told you not to do stuff like that_.

Now, in The Echo, I stoop down to their level. Truly look at them as they face me with a look of tentative hope. They look so much like me. So much of their potential lies in them now, to become as great as I have.

And I finally let them go.

“Go on, then.”

Children are so much more difficult to make into a legacy than war, anyway.

Saedii dares Kaliis to a race, despite having the head start and longer legs. He accepts without thinking in the way little boys do, somehow managing not to fall and scrape his knees as he reaches the swings. Two are unoccupied, soon taken by the siblings.

Saedii swings as high as she can, stretching out her fingertips to touch the light blue sky. Her voice is barely discernible, but I can tell she has started to repeat some popular song she has heard somewhere.

Kaliis breaks the common etiquette, wrapping the chain into a spiral as he lies on his stomach across the seat. He spins and spins and spins, whooping as his little limbs and braids dangle below him.

I stay for a short while, simply standing. The illusion begins to fade away, my sons laughter and daughters singing leaving with it. Echoing in the empty chambers of my heart.

I never tell them goodbye.

* * *

This will be the hardest memory to face. Even now, after her betrayal. That is why I barely even wait to enter it.

Ne’vani, an ancient tradition of dancing in the winter is taking place around me. A colourful swirl of skirts and jackets glitter with the fires lit against the seasons darkness outside. Flowers in ornate vases have been prepared on the tables, bright and lovely in the pristine marble of the rooms floor and walls. Vines of delicate lights light up the room in addition to the carved fireplaces. They hang from the ceiling, and the bannisters of the grand staircase that I entered through with my fellow Paladins earlier.

The grand room in this Temple of The Void has a ceiling made of glass shaped into a crystal dome. It allows one to look up at the stars as the snow falls, for the students and scholars of the Temple to study the abyss that the sky is.

Syldrathi have never seen the sky as a blanket or tapestry. We see it as an infinite ocean of stars, planets and complete emptiness. It is cold and unfeeling, though it contains life. I was searching for some scholar or other important person when I saw my Be’shmai for the first time.

It surprised me that I had one at all. I have never felt as if there is room for anything other than affairs that last for a night in my life, that to allow a woman into it permanently would be more than slightly inconvenient. Making eye contact with the loveliest woman I have ever seen across the ballroom in the ocean of dancing people, I came to the realization that I was wrong.

I would have exchanged a thousand nights with a thousand different women just to spend one with her.

Laeleth was dressed in the loveliest silver, a dress that clung in thin silk to her curves and then spilled out in waves of layered white fabric. She glittered in the Ne’vani festival lights, her eyes and lips just as vibrant as her clothing. I will never forget how her face changed from contentment and mild amusement to complete wonder. The smile she gave me as I glanced to a balcony door, open to the chill and gentle snowfall outside.

We could barely look away from one another as we crossed the ballroom. I still do not know how we did not crash into some other partygoer or two

. When we finally reached each other at the balcony, I offered her one of the two drinks I had swept up along the way. She had smiled, asking my name and story as she took it. I offered both up, and we began to truly fall as she gave me hers.

We spent hours talking that night, even during one of the dances I convinced her to do with me. She was not eager to join the crowd. Laeleth was never much of a dancer. Even so, she smiled up at me the whole time.

I drew her in closer during our dance, took just a foot more space to bring my body nearer to hers as she led me down the hallway. Then we finally had our first kiss. Pushing her up against the door of her bedroom, my hands smoothing down her dress as she brought her hands up to pull the clip tying my braids up away.

The door remained firmly locked for the rest of our first night together, the bed firmly occupied.

It was the beginning of everything.

The begining of our life together, one that I was certain would last forever despite our families and friends dissent. I had been so _sure_. That when I would become the king of my cabal, she would be my queen. I would change everything with Laeleth ruling beside me.

She had run, the weight of the crown too much for her to bear. Perhaps I could have forgiven her that, had she not taken my son with her. In this moment of all my memories of her, I was ignorant to all of that.

My hands are still moving over her body of their own accord, tracing the curve of her hip and thigh. She is uncovered, hair unbraided as she looks up at me. Curled up in my arms, she is so beautiful and vulnerable that I almost forget.

“Where is your mind right now?” Laeleth asks me, reaching to my jaw to take a lock of my hair in her fingers. She twines it around her pointer finger as I lay my hand to on her delicate waist.

I do what I have always done when the truth does not work.

“Nowhere but here,” I lie. “Exactly where I want to be.”

I bring my mouth to hers to take one last kiss, smooth my hand through her pale silver hair one last time.

I imagine the knife into existence, yet nothing feels make believe as I plunge it into her heart. I draw back, letting the illusion fade away as her hand comes up to run her fingers across my face. She has been betrayed by me in a way I have imagined a thousand times, but her eyes are not filled with tears and hatred as the light leaves them. They are filled with love, forgiveness for all I have done and failed to do.

* * *

“I am ready.”

It is not a question, not a statement, it is an order.

The Eshvaren is a creature of myth, and yet it acts like every other creature I have met. When I order for something to be done, it is done.

The Eshvaren looks me in the eyes, the mismatch matching my own. Its answer is simple.

“Yes.”


End file.
